This is one of those episodes where I remember the short and the host segments and not the movie. Most of the time I doubt I could tell you what episode they go with.
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Obey the toaster!
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If I were making a Top Ten list of on-camera Mike Moments, this episode would definitely have a spot.
I was laughing so hard I think I lost the ability to breathe the first time I saw āMatches For Mikey.ā
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Donāt forget when he accidentally sawed himself in half on Skydivers.
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Not to mention the disasters of trying to break into GPCās diary! (Servo went along for the ride there, too!)
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ā
All my exes died in Texas!ā
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āMaybe they blew up ZZ Top.ā āMaybe.ā
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Rewatching this, thanks to this monthās Vault Picks.
Aunty McFrank is painful to watch, but matches for Mikey is a series highlight by a mile.
Poking fun at the gloomy short is spot-on, and itās just perfect fodder. Itās so weird, too, how the railroad made a film featuring a priest rambling about how the Bible says we have 70 years to live and then recounting how working for the railroad resulted in these terrible life-destroying accidents. And then mentions at the very end that of course itās not the railroadās fault because the company does everything it possibly can to make a safe workplace and never ever put people under undue pressure and constraints. So much great riffing on this one.
It still hurts to watch, though. As a disabled person, itās just exhausting to see them dig into āAnd now this person is disabled and there is no value left in his life. Such a tragedy. Nothing good will ever happen to him again, and heās a burden on his family.ā (And also heās of no worth because he canāt work for the company anymore.)
As for the main feature: Itās plodding and unoriginal, but still manages to have its moments. Some great riffs.
But the most unrealistic part of the whole thingā¦ which they never even attempt to explainā¦ How in the heck did they get a foot-thick lead vault installed in an old farmhouseā¦ upstairs??
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āShut up, Llama!ā
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That priest is so hateful and smarmy that I wish he was George Nader. : P
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You see him as hateful? Living with religious folk in my early days, my read is philosophical. The character is resigned that what will happen has happened and will not interfere because these people have to ask for help to be helped. He will not force himself on them. They have to open the door. Itās a point of view that used to be quite common especially back then. Iāve seen it in my grandmother and her friends for most my youth and it is how many people operated. Live and let live. Grieve but donāt interfere because you respect the other person enough to make their own decision. That and at one time it was thought to be considerate and thoughtful not harmful. My view anyway.
Add to that the weird Union Pacific training video vibe and itās truly something and dramatized for maximum effect. The short is propaganda so everything is exaggerated and you have to break it down to see the smaller pieces. Remember the song My Own Prison? From the 90s? The people in this short are in their own prisons mentally and the man of God is commenting on that and laments that life is short and that people should step outside that suffering and live their lives. Where it gets weird is where the training video makes it bleak because thatās what itās designed to do.
Once youāre injured, your life is done. That is where it crosses the line. Since itās made by Union Pacific, they wonāt blame themselves. PSAs even today never blame themselves. Itās all about effecting the audience. Then and now. To scare people into taking safety seriously, you set it in simple terms. Do and die. Which is what The Days of Our Years (1955) leaves us with. Make one mistake and that is it. This is Union Pacificās twist and the preacher is their mouthpiece to effect the audience. If I disdain anyone, itās Union Pacific for laying it out cynically with no exceptions. But again itās a training video and nuance is not what theyāre striving for.
Sorry for the speech Clang. LOL! Itās how I write sometimes. I had a lot on my mind and the only way to untangle it was to write it out. Youāre right not to like the preacher. The whole short rests on him shaming you into good behavior and that rests with Union Pacific. And true George Nader might be an improvement. At least he could smile and lighten it up unlike that guy. Mr. Personality he isnāt.
This episodeā¦ I keep forgetting this episode exists. I always see the title and think itās either The Indestructible Man with Lon Chaney Jr or The Projected Man with Bryant Halliday. I tried watching it again since itās one of this monthās episodes, and just fell asleep half-way through. I have no opinion on the riffing or the skits or even the plot. I donāt remember any of them. This movie is so, so dull.
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Yeah. Like I said, Iām tired of disabled people being treated that way.
But this is the company saying it. As you said, they take no responsibility. More to the point, however, once youāre injured, youāre no longer making money for them. Instead, they have to make disability payments for work-related injuries, and spend money training your replacement. So donāt make our bottom line your priest sad.
Iām still stuck on this.
Step 1: Buy an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, so you can work secretly and no one will be suspicious.
Step 2: Get lead shielding installed inside the roof.
Step 3: Install a lead vault on the top floor of an old wooden house, which can only be accessed by a narrow stairway with an even more narrow door half a flight from the top.
What could possibly go wrong? Who would suspect a thing? Why not put a bedroom right under the vault with only an old wood ceiling to hold it up?
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Maybe it was some of that Krell-technology lead isotope.
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Taking this in for the first time a few months ago, it nearly had the effect of drugs watching it. I was reeling nearly from the start and it bothered me increasingly until it ended. Union Pacific used faith as a smokescreen to clear their own conscience while troubling yours. These shorts were blunt tools to hit home a subject by overloading the watcher and painting a dim picture to impact the bottom line regardless of any of reactions one might have later. Itās a means to an end and the short term outcome is what matters. No long term evaluation was ever thought of let alone whether it was a good message to send. Only decades later are we standing back and asking what it means. Not them.
As someone with disability myself, I relate to your irritation towards the worldview espoused and it is an unnecessarily bleak view engineered for their public messaging not for us as an audience. This isnāt a slice of life but a shock to the system absent the niceties of other kinds of storytelling. To give it any more weight than that understanding this is to hand them too much credit. Itās public relations and advertising and what it relates to doesnāt even exist anymore. It is an antique and by modern reckoning a fossil. Mock it? Yes. Have fun at its expense? Definitely. Though beyond that, donāt allow it to distress you too much. Itās not worth it. Lifeās too short. I prefer spending my time on what I love and the rest I let go. My feeling anyway.
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Kind of a zen way to look at it. Which is generally how I try to go about things. But when Iām watching the short, itās hard not to feel it. And it is a harmful message that needs some pushback, so at least people can spot it and think about it and maybe reconsider how disabled people are treated and viewed.
All that said: At face value, the short is saying āWeāve (purportedly) made the workplace as safe as we can, and we donāt want you getting injured. So remember that safety rules are there for good reason and that being careless can have dire consequences.ā Itās a common message weāve seen in a number of shorts about workplace safety, traffic safety, walking to school, etc.
Itās just that this short is coming from the railroad, which has a long history that, well, does not really emphasize worker health and safety. You do have to give them credit for having a somewhat sympathetic approach. āItās understandable that he was excited, and that understandably led to a momentās carelessnessā¦ā
Thereās just a lot of undercurrents to it all.
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Agreed. Itās an ongoing banquet of thoughts to unpack. When I walk back and see it, Iāll have those feelings again. Without question. Life is hard enough I take seriously what I expose myself to. Either I avoid it altogether or I weigh the pros and cons and make my peace with it as much as I can. It is not an easy proposition however I know who I am enough to decide. The Days of Our Years (1955) alone is unwatchable. My read. With Mike and the bots? Passable. I may return to it but not that often. Your problems are mine too. The subject is close to home and not a topic I appreciate being beaten like a dead horse. Thus once in a blue moon will do. Past that, I wonāt seek it out.
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āAs you can see, gentlemen, this instrument was designed for something considerably more bulky than our human cranium.ā
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Didnāt pay attention to the short because oh boy.
Found the movie kind of interesting though.
Mike does a great horror villain.
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You could even say they wereā¦ Toast.
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